Saturday, June 12, 2004

It was old home week!

The far left in America has not had a lot to celebrate recently. So a good-size crowd, and not all of it graybeards, turned up at Columbia Law School on Thursday evening for a party in honor of a new book, "No Surrender: Selected Writings of an Anti-Imperialist Political Prisoner," by David Gilbert.

Mark Rudd, who as a member of Students for a Democratic Society led the antiwar demonstrations that shut down Columbia in the spring of 1968, was there, along with an assortment of Black Panther alumni and former members of the Weathermen.

Woohoo! All the usual pond scum.

The guest of honor had a slight problem attending though:

Mr. Gilbert himself was unable to attend, except via a recorded message in which he sent a "loving anti-imperialist hug" to everyone. He has been a prisoner in the New York State correction system since 1982 and will not be eligible for parole until 2056. His 23-year-old son, Chesa Boudin, was on hand, though — tall, handsome and articulate and just back from Merton College, Oxford, where he is finishing his first year as a Rhodes Scholar. Mr. Boudin (whose first name means "dancing feet" in Swahili) is left-wing royalty — or he would be if the left wing did not disapprove of royalty.

Mr. Boudin's mother is Kathy Boudin. In 1981 she and Mr. Gilbert, then a leader of the Weather Underground, and several others were arrested after a notorious incident in Nanuet, N.Y. The group attempted to hold up a Brink's truck, though Mr. Gilbert later said it had not been a robbery, strictly speaking, but an "armed action" intended to "expropriate" funds that properly belonged to the black community. A Brink's guard was shot to death while loading moneybags into the back of the truck, and two police officers were later killed at a roadblock in nearby Nyack, N.Y.

The radicals were all charged with robbery and second-degree murder. Two of them, Ms. Boudin and Samuel Brown, hired conventional lawyers and defended themselves in court. The others, including Mr. Gilbert, boycotted their own trial, claiming that they belonged to the Provisional Government of New Afrika and should be treated as prisoners of war according to the Geneva Conventions.

Ms. Boudin, who eventually expressed remorse and sought forgiveness, was paroled last summer and reunited with her son, who was just 14 months old when she was sent to jail. Mr. Gilbert, unrepentant, still claims to be the political prisoner of an imperialist United States government.

Rot. In. Hell. Asshat. And your royal offspring too.

There are more social notes which are largely forgettable, but check this out:

The second-biggest cheer of the evening went to Susan Rosenberg, a former member of the Weather Underground pardoned by President Bill Clinton. She said, "We hated Reagan, damn it," and went on to tell a story about a friend who stopped smoking pot the day of President Ronald Reagan's inauguration because he knew "things were about to get serious."...No one mentioned the three people killed in the robbery.

Sue, the fact that you and your little pals are still wasting oxygen shows that things didn't get serious enough.